Supply Run
by X-parrot
Summary: A trading mission goes south for the team.


Warning - I hesitate to say for what. But consider yourself warned. Originally posted on the lj comm sgaflashfic.

Supply Run  
X-parrot

They stepped through the Stargate into a bright summer morning. The sun was burning off the last dawn mists floating over the fields of PX6-004, a patchwork of green and gold spread out over the rolling lands. Sheppard drew a bracing breath of fresh air and smiled at the farmlands. This was more like it.

He led his team down the broad road leading from the gate. It must have rained hard the night before; the road was churning with mud, thick rich loam grooved with cartwheel ruts. Teyla had warned them that this planet's population were wary of strangers and traded only infrequently through the Stargate, so these tracks were probably from fieldworkers, farmers' carts or tractors, if they were that far developed. Those classic amber waves were wheat, or something like it--the people here would be breakfasting right now on fresh bread, and fruit from the orchards he could see in the distance... Sheppard looked away, his stomach not actually growling, but he felt hollow from hunger, as he had for days now. It had been too long since he had had a filling meal.

They trudged down the road for a mile before they came over the hill onto the village, a cluster of houses larger than Sheppard was hoping for. It looked promising, and he bounced a little on his toes as he asked, "How many, McKay?"

Rodney fiddled with the life-signs detector. "Two thousand people at least, probably more."

"Great. Maybe they'll be willing to trade." He kept his tone light as he looked around the fields surrounding the village, thinking of all the lucky well-fed folks living there.

Atlantis had had supply problems before, but never as severe as the present emergency. The Daedalus was still more than a week and a half away, and that was too long to wait; they were going to start losing people to malnourishment if they didn't find food somewhere.

"Maybe," McKay muttered, heavy with sarcasm. Their last few failures were fueling his innate pessimism. When Sheppard glanced over, McKay was hunched over the detector, and the set of his shoulders clearly stated that he had better things to be doing than poking around the galaxy for snacks. Though he didn't say that aloud; he hadn't been talking much at all. Sheppard had always taken McKay's professed hypoglycemia as more paranoia than physiology, but while ordinary hunger usually just made him noisy and snappish, their current situation had shut him down to a disturbing extent.

Rodney wanted to be back on Atlantis, Sheppard knew, helping Beckett and his team find a long-term solution to this crisis. But for now the short-term was their only chance.

"Come on, let's go make a deal," Sheppard said, and they headed down into town. Up close, the houses were mostly two-story structures, crammed close together. The architecture was reminiscently feudal European with the brick walls and thatched roofs, though the soft rounding of all corners and the pastel colors they favored gave the impression of a Disney fairytale village.

The villagers were apparently preparing for a daily market, rolling carts into the wide central square and spreading out colorful awnings. This cheerful bustle came to a grinding halt when Sheppard and his team stepped through the stone entry arch, and Sheppard raised one hand and said, "'Morning, folks."

Peoples in the Pegasus galaxy had a wide range of reactions to strangers. Sometimes Sheppard's team had been pulled into hugs and lip-locks upon their first meeting; others were more reserved. Here, all faces turned toward the newcomers, and stared at them for a moment in silence. Then a single voice, high enough to be a child's, screamed, piercing and terrified. Seconds later, the streets were empty, resounding with the thuds of many slamming doors.

Sheppard rocked back on his heels, rested his hands on the butt of his P-90 and sighed. "Well, that could've gone better," he said. It wasn't like this was the first such reaction they'd gotten in their travels, and it wasn't the worse by far, but it still stung.

"You cannot blame them," Teyla said quietly. "They were...not expecting us," and she turned her head away as if she had intended to say more, but changed her mind. McKay didn't say anything, still bent over his detector. He hadn't looked up long enough to see any of the villagers' faces.

"I know," Sheppard said, "but we don't have a choice right now." He slogged through the mud, heading toward the building at the other end of the square. It was the only three-story structure, and the spire topping the roof was carved and painted gold. With luck it was town hall, or the mayor's house, or the residing place of some kind of authority.

The front doors were thick oak, or the nearest Pegasus approximation. Sheppard hammered his fist on the wood. "Hello," he called through it. "Come out, will you? We're just here to talk. We want to make a trade. Trade, got that? Not stealing."

He heard muffled noises inside, footsteps on creaky floorboards. There was someone right behind the door. And a flutter of the curtains at the window--someone else was peering out at them through the cloth. He was guiltily grateful Ronon was not here; while Sheppard sorely missed his teammate's dependable strength, they didn't need the added intimidation of his size right now. "Come on," Sheppard said, keeping his tone calm and easy. "I know this is...kind of irregular, us just dropping by like this. But we're really short of food right now, back home, and you look like you might have some to spare. We'll make it worth your while."

"We will never...trade with the likes of you!" a deep voice inside growled. "Leave us, or we will defend ourselves!"

Sheppard's jaw tightened. He didn't want it to be like this, he really didn't, but they were running out of options. "I realize this might be hard to understand, but hear me out. This isn't quite what it looks like. There was an accident where we lived--an experiment went wrong, and now we're in danger of starving to death before we can put it right. You have food my people need, if there's any way we can work something out--"

"Never!" bellowed the baritone, and without warning the door swung open.

Sheppard, acting on instinct and reflexes not entirely dulled by hunger, threw himself out of the way as the shotgun appeared. It was a heavy double-barreled weapon that might have Genii parts, designed to do serious damage. They weren't joking about the self-defense. But he was fast enough, and the shot discharged harmlessly across the square with a thunderous boom.

He wasn't expecting a semi-automatic. The second shot came too soon, while Sheppard's ears were still ringing from the echo of the first, but he heard the choked gasp Rodney made as he went down.

Teyla was there to catch him, easing him to the ground, her eyes wide. McKay slumped against her. His chest was a mess; the shotgun's shell had pierced the tac vest like gauze, splintered ribs and torn a hole in his gut. The life signs detector dropped from his limp hand into the mud.

Teyla murmured his name, desperately anxious, pressing her hands uselessly over the wound, as Rodney choked and heaved, dark-specked froth on his lips.

Sheppard stared at them blankly for a single second; then he was acting without thinking, without space for thought. He slammed wide the wooden door, wrenched the gun from the shooter with a gesture so easy he barely felt himself move, and grabbed the man by the collar--a big guy, almost his height and half again his width, with a solid beer gut and thick farmhand arms, but Sheppard picked him up like a kitten, for all he felt weak with hunger.

The man cried out hoarsely, thrashing and struggling helplessly against Sheppard's grip, as he was heaved out of the house, shoved down into the mud beside McKay. Sheppard kept him forced down with one hand around his neck; with his other hand he grasped for Rodney's.

Rodney's eyes were glazing over but his lips moved. Sheppard couldn't make out what he was trying to say, though, could only hear the faint bubbling wheezes of his dying breaths.

He took Rodney's right hand, slack fingers already going cold, and pressed it over the struggling man's chest, palm down, feeding slit open.

_"No,"_ Rodney was trying to say, but Sheppard held on, feeling the man's pulse in his throat fluttering against his fingers and aching with the hunger for that life, until Rodney's appetite overrode everything else and he fed, ruined chest knitting up whole and healthy and alive, lips pulled back from ragged stained teeth as he screamed.

_fin_

_ Written for the sgaflashfic's Not Human Challenge. _


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